Familiarity
by wingeddserpent
Summary: Becoming a pirate isn't something you do all in one day. Minor Balthier/Fran.
1. Chapter 1

The wind stirs, whisking snow into her face. She wrinkles her nose. So many years away from home, and still, the various climates are no more usual to her than eyes of hues not red or yellow. But she has come this far to see—she'll not turn back.

In the dark cloudy sky the even darker outlines of buildings rise high above this city like guardians or, perhaps, skeletons. Never, in all her years in this world, has she seen a city so void of soul. The streets below are filled to bursting with the forsaken, and the streets above are empty, its occupants hiding in the warmth of their overlarge homes.

She tips her face skyward, snowflakes falling onto her face only to melt. It is nothing like the Jungle, here. Mayhap that is where the appeal lies.

"Excuse me, miss," a muffled voice comes from a person who reeks of blood and metal. "May I see your papers?"

She turns. He is a hume warrior in a hume city, dressed all in metal with his face hidden behind a mask meant to inspire fear and obedience. A shame it will not work on her—she has walked the Plains of the Jahara and seen masks more terrifying than his.

"My papers?" she asks, indulging him.

A farce, even she knows. This city does not love her when she walks the higher streets. As a viera, her place is down, to be trod on and used. No papers exist that allow a viera into the upper city.

Beneath his armor, he shifts uncomfortably. "You're required to show me your papers, miss."

"I have none," she tells him. "I am but a visitor."

"I'm afraid I need to ask you to leave. It's illegal for outsiders to walk the streets of Archades without their papers in order," he shifts again.

She tilts her face up again and nearly smiles when he does the same. The boy is a youngling, his voice behind the harsh metal of his mask not yet broken with age, his build still slight. He does not like this. "Your name? Then I shall leave."

"...Judge Bunansa," he says and then points to the way she'd come.

A small victory is hers this day. From a soulless city, she has the name of a boy who can never know her. This city holds no love for her, but one of its members holds kindness.

For one as unfortunate and old as she, it is enough to go on for now. The snow is her only accompaniment out of the city.

* * *

The streets reek of salt and blood and sweat; the streets teem with rage and fear and greed. Steel weapons glint in the sun, sometimes dulled by red hume blood, sometimes not. Neatly, she steps out of the way of an arrow.

Coarse voices shout loudly, curses and celebrations falling from hume or bangaa or seeq mouths. Truly, she has not heard such diversity since leaving Rabanastre.

Down each path lies treachery and violence. She tilts her head to the side. Humes always were a violent race, but, even for them, this is excessive. A vendor looks at her with compassion; he is a man clad in clothes of red and wears a smile like the moon. "You look lost."

"Not lost," she informs him calmly. "Learning."

"This is Balfonheim, city of pirates. Street fighting just comes with the territory." With his smile still in place, he points her to the tavern.

She knows little of pirates—they steal what is not theirs, sometimes by sea and sometimes by air. The road to the tavern is straightforward, but littered with brawling pirates who try to slash at her with knives and swords. Fran sighs. It is but an annoyance—they are neither crafty nor fast enough to touch her.

Perhaps this city does not love her, either.

The path forks, one road leads to the tavern, or so says the merchant with the curved smile, and the other, to a place unknown. Tilting her head to the side, she takes the unknown path.

A building, large and round, rises before her. It does not smell of blood, but of metal. In a town so saturated with the scents of struggle, it is refreshing. She sidesteps what is meant to be a dagger deep in her ribs.

Fran walks through the entryway, breath catching. Aerodromes are new for her still—what viera ever learns of flight? Only birds are meant to soar—were viera meant to fly, they would have wings rather than ears.

Ships made of metal surround her, gleaming in the lights cast from the orange crystals. There is no fighting here, rather peace. People here talk with a quiet, though still rough, cadence, without the swearing and anger of outside. Were she not able to recognize them as pirates by their stenches, Fran would think she had arrived in a new city entirely.

"Kupo, I want you to fix the accelerator."

A moogle nearby talks to his partner who lays sleeping at the foot of the grand ship, his wrench lax in his paw. At his partner's voice, he does not stir. Curious, Fran kneels and lifts the tool gently from his grip.

Again, he does not stir.

She has seen mechanics work at their trade, knows that the wrench is used to tighten and loosen the hexagonal connectors. And to hit a part that isn't working. But, frankly, she isn't sure why that would be effective, not that she has any experience in the matter.

Quietly, she slides herself under the ship, wrench in hand. It smells of metal and oil, and it is nothing like the Jungle. Fran stretches herself flat on her back and blinks through the darkness at the thing's vast underbelly. The connectors are there and well, everyone must begin someplace. She'll start here.

Fran fits the wrench around one of the connectors and pulls. It doesn't budge; it doesn't turn as she knows it should. So, she tries the other way. Smoothly, it turns beneath her touch and she tilts her head to the side and continues until the connector falls out, landing next to her head with a clang. Above her, the moogle's actions stop. A long pause follows and then he returns to his work. It sounds as though he stands directly above her.

With a shrug, she returns to removing connectors, calm and peace washing over her with cool familiarity. Almost, just almost, it reminds her of meditating in the Village.

She pulls eight connectors from the ship's underbelly before something changes. Fran feels the metal panel itself loosening long before but thinks little of it and cares even less right up until the thing creaks and comes off. Frantic, she rolls out of the way of a chunk of metal. In fact, she thinks she's removed part of the floor because the moogle lays upon it, breathing hard and swearing as only moogles can.

"Kupo, kupo, kupo!" He looks around until he spots her. "What have you done, kupo?"

"I've learned how not to assist a moogle," she tells him.

His pompom quivers. "You've broken the ship, kupo! What were you thinking?"

"I wish to learn of machinery," she says after a pause. "Will you teach me?"

He examines her handiwork dubiously, and then looks back at her.

"Well… you're certainly the hands on type, kupo. That's good in a mechanic…" But his little furred mouth turns down in a frown.

Fran tries to sit up and bangs her head and flattens her ears. She lays back again. "I am not a viera. I can learn."

"Well, kupo," he sounds resigned now. "Maybe you're not completely hopeless. You broke a ship in ten minutes, kupo. You've got some sort of skill."

* * *

Nono is a patient teacher as one can expect a moogle to be, which is not at all. But, he genuinely seems to like her, which goes a lot further than mere patience ever could. Especially considering she breaks more than half of what she's trying to fix, and breaks all of what she isn't.

"Kupo…" he looks at the tiny Tonberry she'd been attempting to repair. "It looked better when it came."

Slowly, she removes her goggles and shakes metal shavings from her hair. "Perhaps," she says quietly.

"Not _perhaps_, kupo! You've ruined it, kupo! And it had already been blown up by bounty hunter, kupo! I thought it was impossible to make it worse, kupo, but you've managed." He's shaking and waving his wrench at her.

"I…" she tilts her head to the side and gives a small smile, "...have a knack for doing the impossible."

Nono stops raging and then laughs. "All right, kupo. Well, it's going to be impossible to fix this ship. Kupo, let's get to work.."

* * *

Violence and mindless killing are not natural for her, but the streets boil with rage. Though she is a mechanic now—more or less, with, perhaps, an emphasis on the less—she is still not safe in a haven-less town. Pirates are a dangerous lot. They take what they want, be it food, gil, weapons, magick, sex, or ships.

In the streets, people fight as much as ever. Balfonheim is a wild town, a pirate town, where fighting exists as much because of drink and disagreement as it does to keep blades and reflexes sharp. Bounty hunters, or so the saying goes, are much less forgiving than a sword through the heart in Balfonheim.

He doesn't realize she knows he follows, his feet heavy upon the cobblestones, his sweat-stench thick upon the air she breathes. Fran sighs. In an effort to lose him as much as keep this encounter strictly to two players, she swerves down an alleyway, and quickly whirls around to face him.

From the gleam in his eyes, she deciphers what he wants in an instant and only barely manages to keep her second sigh back. Beauty is a curse she'd rather live without.

His steps bring him nearer—she has a reputation as a pacifist, here, a title that marks her as weak. Well, it seems he shall learn. Calm, she waits, watching as he pulls out a curved dagger of a make she envies. Such a beautiful blade, with a simple hilt made to function without being unattractive.

When he takes another step, she lunges smoothly, and knocks the blade from his hand. His eyes go wide; she leans down and picks up his dagger.

"Now then," she says coolly, "Shall we reverse this? Or were you leaving?"

"I…" his eyes narrow: to be made a fool by a no-talent mechanic!

Hands clenched into fists, he makes a pass at her, sure she won't use the dagger to kill him, regardless of the wide opening he has left.

He misjudges her.

It is his corpse that lays in the alley that night, his blood that coats her hands, and her smile that shines in the moonlight.

Chains, she has found, break in the strangest ways.

* * *

It's summer when she sees it. The sky is marred only with lazy white clouds and the salty scent of the sea wafts across Balfonheim stronger than is usual. Like magick, the street falls silent, and people move, watching. Even sea pirates can appreciate a good machine, especially if it's a hover bike of that caliber.

The lines are clean and it shines in the hot sun and it is powered by a single glossair engine.

It's beautiful.

Upon it sits a woman with red hair that gleams. She is of a muscular build, with long tanned legs than shine and she carries the thin and fast ninja swords of the west. With a grin that is a smirk and a challenge both, she accelerates, the bike purring beneath her touch, and she zips away.

Fran watches as though in a daze. Such a fine piece of machinery she has never seen, even within the aerodrome. Never, in her days since arriving here, has she wished to be a pirate.

But now, the ability to take what she wants… might be as a blessing.

To want is not the way of viera. Regardless, she watches the bike leave, and knows she will have it, one way or another. If it means that the pirate whose hands control it with love and grace will be dead, well then, Fran has learned greed this day as well.

Want and greed are hume emotions, and if she is to spend the rest of her days in the hume world, she will learn these two things. And she will learn them well. Fran looks up to the sky.

With an excitement she has not felt since before she left the Wood, she walks back to the aerodrome, where her bow sits atop her bedroll deep within. Customers do not walk here, merely moogles, and she has yet to meet a moogle with the arm span needed to string her bow.

She picks it up and feels the mottled surface, the imperfections on what was once flawless wood. But that was long ago, before she left the Jungle. Before she forsook what she once was, and became something else, and then something else again, and she has kept changing because nothing ever seems to fit.

Perhaps a pirate engineer will be the calling that stays with her.

Fran grabs her quiver as well. Long ago, it would have been filled. Now that she needs so few arrows, her quiver sits mostly empty. Calmly, she slings both bow and quiver across her back and nods to Nono on her way out.

"Kupo, where are you going?" he asks.

She grins, a glint of teeth in the smoky crystal lighting. "To become a pirate."

"Sky…" he watches her cautiously, "or sea, kupo?"

"Land."

Without glancing back, she slips out into the city.

The streets seem different somehow, for all their sameness. With the bright machine gone, they have again turned to fighting and slashing, while those who work pass through with surprising ease. They look now at her and do not attack.

Whether this development comes from within or without is moot. She lets a small smile quirk her mouth.

It's one of those codes everyone knows about but no one voices that gives Fran her chance: Every pirate just in will stop by the White Cap first. She takes that familiar path and sees the bike sitting lonely before the tavern.

Too easy. In a town of pirates, nothing is what it seems, and everything is what you know it is. This is a trap and one she will walk straight into. Pirates have never been known for their elaborate plans.

They're known for walking straight into danger and coming back with their goal or dying in the process.

Fran unslings her bow but does not notch an arrow. Best to be thought overconfident than to be thought a threat. Moving swiftly to stand beside the bike, she can feel eyes from within the tavern on her. She bends over it to peer at the console and smiles and runs her free hand over the bike with delicate longing.

"You know," a high-pitched and slightly drunken voice calls, "I don't take lightly to people touching my things. Run along, mechanic."

Briefly, Fran is glad her goggles hang 'round her neck. Another way she will be underestimated. Obviously, mechanics in a pirate town know naught of combat.

"What is the cost of this bike?" Fran asks, with a curve to her mouth.

Both of them know the answer. "It's not for buying."

"I see," Fran says and takes a step back. "Shall we?"

There is no more talk. The pirate pulls out her twin blades, grinning. Her drunkenness had been but an act, she hardly smells of drink at all. Fran steps out of the way of a blade, only to be slashed across her side.

Viera kill their opponents by hiding behind screens, where nothing may reach them. Fran does not. She notches an arrow smoothly and steps back again, and realizes, belatedly, she has also underestimated the speed of her opponent.

Fran can't move far enough back, there isn't enough range. Blades swipe at her and she manages to dodge both this time, because coeurls attack with two limbs at once, and she formerly fought those with ease. The pirate smirks and laughs and attacks with a dancer's grace. Too bad her bike contains more beauty than she ever will.

Fran abandons her bow and arrow and pulls out the dagger taken from a man with more steel than sense. The two circle, blades glinting, and Fran knows it looks like she is at disadvantage. But, in Balfonheim, nothing is what it seems.

They test each other, each darting in and out, teasing and twisting. The length of the pirate's swords are offset by the length of Fran's arm.

So, when the pirate darts at her with her ninja sword and gleaming eyes, Fran steps back and uses the dagger to slice the woman's wrist. She hisses and attacks with her other sword and heals the wound.

Victory comes the same whether it be in the Wood or in Balfonheim; victory comes from outlasting your opponent.

Their fight picks up speed then, magick meshing with blades and breath and limbs. For a long while, they are matched—blood for blood, burn for burn, spell for spell, dodge for dodge. But, as it so often is, time is Fran's victory and the hume's undoing.

The pirate tires sooner, her breath coming in sharp gasps, her heartbeat like thunder in Fran's ears. "Are you ready to die for your bike?" Fran asks, once, because it is her way, even if it is also the vieran way. "Or do you yield?"

"I'll die for honor," she bites back and attacks again, desperation turning her blade aside more than Fran's dodge.

Fran gives a soft sigh, one that costs her, for even her own breath comes a little heavier than it had. The ninja blade sinks deep into her side and there's victory in the woman's eyes but she's wrong, for even as Fran gasps, she plunges the dagger deep into the pirate.

And, unlike the hume, she doesn't miss.

A final gurgling gasp and a rush of blood and it's over. Her eyes lose their light and she falls, taking the sword with her. Fran grimaces and kneels to catch her breath and heal. People have long been gathered around them and watch with an especial grimness. She digs into the woman's pocket and pulls out a key made of green skystone.

Fran smiles. They applaud and whistle.

Pirates, as it turns out, are a really simple lot who love a good spectacle and let you keep what you earn. For the time being, at least. A pirate, who wears hume undergarments outside his trousers and stands taller than his brethren, helps her to her feet. "Good fight!" he says with a laugh that shakes her. "There's your prize, mechanic."

"Engineer," she corrects with a slow-forming grin.

They watch her, calculating whether or not she is permitted this rise in their ranks from worker to pirate. Then, they glance at her prize and there are grins. She's won. Transformed again, she thinks that—mayhap—this might finally be what she has been looking for since leaving.

A place where she can learn and change, where no one will assume she is what she isn't based on the length of her ears. Where they will not measure her based on where she is from, but, rather, by what she can do and where she will roam and what she does and does not know. Perhaps this is a place she can call home and belong.

With their eyes on her, she lifts her bow up and grabs the two ninja swords as well. If nothing else, they'll become gil. Casting Cleanse on the blades to clean them of the blood, she tucks the dagger away and slings her bow across her back again. Awkwardly, she moves both the swords to her left hand, and uses the right to cling to the key tightly.

Time for the real test.

She inserts the key into the ignition and it purrs beneath her touch, and it's something like elation and something like fear. In all honesty, she's never operated even something small as a gun.

But, everyone has to start somewhere.

Fran throws her leg across the seat and pushes a button that she thinks might be go and just like that, she's zipping away, with the wind making her hair stream a long ways behind her and she steers frantically, because she has only one hand and it would hurt her new toy if she hits someone. The streets, once thought simple and straightforward, become a maze on this thing, as people stop fighting and working to watch her learn with her hand on the controls and a grin on her mouth.

When she turns sharply, down the path that leads to the aerodrome, she nearly tumbles off, and hangs on tight, because this will not beat her. She will learn, no matter how long it takes, because such beauty is to be prized and worshiped, with hands and oil and wrenches and a certain innovation that she knows she possesses and will one day pay off.

As she enters the aerodrome that has become something like her home, she understands that she is going to crash. She knows not how to stop the bike.

Nono sees her, sees the way her eyes widen and her mouth opens and he shrieks something that sounds an awful lot like a curse, and hides himself behind the biggest ship he can find.

Swiftly, she looks at the console and uses the hand not holding the swords to start hitting the buttons that look like they might stop this thing, and, eventually, has to settle on yanking the key out or hitting the Tonberry her and Nono (well, mostly Nono) had worked so hard to fix. Beneath her hands, the bike dies and comes to a halt just before crashing into the Tonberry.

Fran gives a laugh, wild and free and exhilarated. Nono may be yelling at her for her thoughtlessness, but she knows its significance.

This is the first time she's laughed since she left her home.


	2. Chapter 2

She wants to claim she gets better at mechanicks, but, that seems too optimistic even for her. The only reason the moogles keep her around, she knows, is because she is the first vieran mechanic, and they're hoping something comes of that. Thus far, little has.

Well, skill comes from knowledge and knowledge from learning and time. Her people, gifted so with time, learn slowly, especially when compared to humes. It is no wonder her skill lacks. But, she will learn, for what else has she to do?

The feel of steel beneath her hands in now familiar and pleasant, the dark oil in her hair is almost welcome. She likes this; she likes it here.

"Kupo…" Nono says and pokes her shin with the head of his wrench. "We've got a job to do, kupo."

She nods and nearly smiles. Without further comment, he leads her through the aerodrome that has become so familiar over the past months. A mangled ship sits before them, more broken than it is whole. "We told the man who brought her in that we've seen nothing like it before, kupo, and we might not be able to fix it."

Fran looks at it, at the way it lays upon the deck with one wing half-on and half-off, at the holes that mar it, and realizes this is only the superficial damage. A tragic and broken thing—even the Tonberry was not so without hope. In the low light, the ship is silver, for it's never seen a coat of paint and she thinks that maybe it is some sort of prototype but regardless, she can see the way its beauty glimmers underneath, hiding beneath the cracks and the damage and the roughness. "It will soar again," she says and leaves no room for argument.

"Kupo…" he looks up at her and then, seeing something in her face, nods. "All right, kupo, we'll fix it."

They dive in with hands and wrenches and wire-clippers and every other sort of tool they possibly have at their disposal. Nono frets because everything on this ship is twisted and malformed, like it was put together by someone using backwards plans. And yet, for the first time, Fran _understands_.

"Nono," she tells him, "That connects to this."

He blinks at her. "Kupo, these aren't supposed to connect."

"Regardless," she says.

Viera are known for their pride, but, until now, that has never been Fran's way. But pride is being right, for the first time; pride is Nono's shock and smile; pride is knowing that she has finally found a ship she can save.

Pride is knowing that she has come far enough to succeed.

* * *

The night before they finish repairing the ship—weeks of hard work, broken wrenches, and splintered claws later—Fran goes to the tavern, for the first time since arriving in Balfonheim nearly a year ago.

She sits at an empty table and glances around, not letting her eyes stay on any one thing for too long. Voices accost her from all sides, raucous, but she just lets a smile escape when the barmaid gives her a large mug of ale.

It doesn't matter she doesn't drink. This is a cultural experience.

"I'll have you know that I'm only here because my ship is a prototype and they haven't fixed it yet," a voice says. It's familiar, but not a voice she knows from the streets of Balfonheim.

She lifts the cup to her nose and sniffs. Blinking hard, she sets it down and turns her ear to the conversation.

"You're still here," a woman's voice sounds, rich and amused, "...because you're ship's a piece of shit and you crashed it."

"Balthier, I think it may be time you invested in another ship." This voice she recognizes—it's the man who helped her the day she acquired her bike.

Silence and then—a cup thuds onto the heavy wood of the table. "Oh, come back, Balthier. He didn't mean anything by it."

Fran stands then and moves through the tavern like smoke to block the pirate's path. For a hume, he is average height, though he stands inches shorter than herself. He blinks up at her and his wide eyes are an indiscernible color—blue, green, brown? "I… yes?" He collects himself, making his expression cool and unaffected.

"You are familiar," she says and pulls her goggles down so they hang about her neck.

Balthier blinks at her and then furrows his brows and then, finally, his face drains of color. Recognition. "I think..." he tries for charming, but the hesitance and unease in his voice gives away both his lie and his youth, "...that you're quite mistaken."

Briefly, she watches him and considers. "I am not," she says.

He flinches and the other two pirates watch with more than acute interest. "I'm Balthier," he says, struggling to regain footing lost; he holds his hand out.

"Fran," she says and does not take it. "I am the engineer who works upon your ship."

Instantly, eyes once wary go bright and change to blue, like the sky he dreams of. "Indeed! Is she repaired?"

"She will fly again," she replies and nearly allows herself a smile at the grin that spreads faster than he can think to repress it.

"May I…" he pauses, scrutinizes her, and if he finds her wanting, the love of his ship presses the next words from his mouth, "...may I see her?"

Rules and regulations, they have never been for her. Who is she to bar him from his beloved, simply because an intangible rule tells her to? Fran nods, once. "Thank you," he says after a moment's pause.

His accent is familiar, but she can't place it. They abandon their drinks and aren't even out the door when people start whispering. He can't hear them but perhaps that is just as well—he is young, yet, and other people's perceptions are important to adolescent humes, she has found.

The streets clamor loud and violent as ever and she glances at him, but he does not falter; he merely puts a hand to the antique gun he wears on his back. This is not new for him, despite his apparent youth.

Not for the first time, she wonders why humes choose to live this way. Then, she remembers that this is her choice, too.

"I didn't realize viera could be mechanics," he says as they walk, his tone casual.

She looks at him—he wears brightly colored silks that are thick and out of place in a sea-port and round glasses. Past grandeur hides in his gestures, in the steady and dignified gait he sets. He does not keep pace with her, rather he goes at his own speed and expects her to match it.

Fran stops and he does too, surprise coloring his face, making it red where once it was pale. "I… apologize. That was…"

He trails off as she lets her eyes flicker shut and inhales deeply.

"Are…" he swallows loudly, "...are you smelling me?"

Silk and gunpowder and metal and blood, though the blood may be from the streets. "You are the boy from Archades. Bunansa," she says and opens her eyes.

"No longer," he says as though that is the end of it.

How little he knows, this hume. He clings yet to the dress, to the deep-seated feelings for the races, and the mannerisms of his birthplace. To cut his past away, he will have to do more than become a pirate. He will have to do more than simply run from his soulless city.

He will have to change, and that is the hardest of all things.

His eyes are brown now, hard like her home was, and she can only shake her head. Fran walks again and does not look back at him. He follows. They are quiet until they reach the aerodrome and then the fortress of silence and tension they have built is shattered by Nono. "Who's this, kupo?"

"Balthier," she says, while Balthier Bunansa gazes down at Nono as though he's never seen a moogle before.

Nono blinks his surprise, then asks, "But, kupo…" he frowns and tilts his head to the side, unaware that his nose and paws are slicked with grease, "...Why is he here?"

Fran sighs heavily and says, after a pause, "I wished to show him his ship."

"Kupo, you know better than that," Nono sounds more resigned than anything else and he nods in the direction of the ship they've all but poured their blood into.

Without another word, Balthier leaves them and Nono wrinkles his nose in disgust. "I hate Archadians, kupo."

"He will learn," Fran pauses, then says, "Perhaps."

* * *

Balthier, after her and Nono finish fixing his ship, becomes a name she hears often. Mostly, it is the other pirates mocking him for his youth and his dress and his accent and the whimsy of his ship and the fact he flies partner-less. On occasion, however, she hears of a successful heist, how he has stolen a prized jewel from Nabradia, or a shipment of weapons from Landis, or silk from Dalmasca. She never hears of him stealing from Archadia, however.

When she next sees him, he's abandoned the silks of his home for thick leather and cotton; he's abandoned regal for dashing, gentry for pirate. Still, he wears his youth in the way his mouth curls and in the hesitance of his steps.

"Fran, was it?" he asks as though he has not invaded the place she lives.

"Indeed," she replies from under her hover bike. "Have you need of me?"

Fran glances up at him, keeping a single eye on her work. In all honesty, her bike needs no fixing, she's merely making it more mindful. "I heard that viera were one of the few races left who knew the art of enchanting."

Perhaps she erred in telling Nono he would learn. She sets her wrench aside and pulls herself from underneath the bike. Grease and oil and dirt create patches on her fur and hair and Balthier eyes her with something akin to distaste.

Whether it be the grime or her ears that are the basis for his disgust, she can't tell. Somehow, unfortunately, she thinks it may be a mesh of both.

"Indeed," she says again and inclines her head.

"How much will your services cost?" Balthier asks, eyes suddenly bright. "I can pay."

Humes and their presumptions. She closes the distance between them—he smells of leather and gunpowder and metal, now. His eyes widen and he looks up at her; he is taller now, but still shorter than she. "I do not want your gil."

He takes a step back, face contorted—a child thwarted. With wounded feathers and shattered dignity, dignity that was a farce to begin with, he turns his back on her to leave. Had she chosen it, she could have killed him then.

"There are other currencies," she says, making him still.

Both his brows furrow, his face is a cross between curiosity and something like fear. "What…" he measures her with his eyes and continues, "...do you have in mind?"

Fran tilts her head to the side and lets a smile cross her mouth. For an Archadian, he is not so bad. He at least makes an effort for propriety and affability, even if his eyes and facial expressions play traitors. "There is a hunt."

"Done," he says.

This time, she laughs at him, though it's hardly more than a chuckle. "You will aid me," she tells him, "Then, I shall enchant an item for you. For each item, one hunt."

Balthier thinks, and gives a nod. "Four hunts, then."

"We shall begin on the morrow," she tells him and he nods again.

He's about to leave when she stops him. "Oh, and Balthier?" she pauses to smile, "Do not bring your gun."


	3. Chapter 3

When he arrives promptly at dawn, she is surprised, if not impressed. Balthier looks at her and her bike and the way her hands are on the controls and he frowns.

"Get on," she tells him.

"Are you sure…" he looks at it with an appreciation for the mechanicks, but with great doubt. "...it's safe for two?"

She grins and adjusts her goggles. "If you hold on."

Hesitant, as though she might bite if he moves too fast, he sidles up next to her bike and runs his fingers over the metal with care but not love. It will take hours to clean off his fingerprints. Fran represses a sigh.

"Get on," she tells him again because he needs the encouragement.

He does, sitting behind her, taking care to ensure they do not touch. With a sigh, she turns the key. The bike roars to life and his breath catches. Finally, something goes through his mind besides unease, for Balthier, with ginger hesitance, puts his hands on her hips.

She feels the way he startles and freezes at the feel of fur beneath his fingers, but sudden motion convinces him to tighten his grip on her.

Fast, fast—because in a world with humes, she's got to overcompensate, else they will outpace her, and she'll never catch up—she steers her bike out of the aerodrome and Nono waves at them with his wrench glinting in the low light. Balthier, hanging on tight enough to bruise her, splutters through a mouthful of her hair.

"You're a menace," he tells her the third time she nearly runs someone over.

"That," she replies easily, "is the duty of a pirate, is it not?"

He tightens his grip as they go flying over grass, dodging creatures now, instead of men and women. "I thought you were a mechanic."

"Engineer," Fran says.

"You're steering is…" he searches for a word and spits out strands of her hair, "...abysmal."

She'll need to wash his saliva off after this; Fran grimaces and picks up speed again, making him yelp and close the distance between them. His chest presses against her back. "I do not crash."

"That _is _reassuring," he says sullenly.

Fran can't resist laughing at the hume boy; Balthier retreats back into hurt silence, clinging to her only because he must. Scenery whizzes past in a blur and he watches it as well as he can, despite her hair in his eyes+. Youth and curiosity, he will outgrow both faster than she will, and she gives a wry smile.

They come to a stop in the Phon Coast, and he wraps his arms around her to keep from falling off, his sharp chin digs into her shoulder. "Gods," he breathes, panting.

His heart hammers in his chest and she can only smile. Gently, she pulls his hands from her and then stands. He follows her example, wringing his thick hume fingers. They are red from clutching.

"What are we hunting?" he asks, though she doubts this is the first time he has wondered.

"A ring wyrm," she says with a curving smile, "Be sharp."

He looks at her like she's got five ears and asks, dumbfounded, "We're killing a ring wyrm and you've stripped me of my gun? Are you mad?"

"Perhaps," says Fran and hands him her bow.

Blank faced—she knows this as significant, he wears his facial expressions louder than the colored bracelets on his wrists—he looks down at it and then at the arrow she gives him wordlessly. He runs his tongue over his upper lip and glances up at her; she waits. "I don't know how…" The admission catches deep in his throat and he must clear it free, "...to use this."

Ignoring his unease, she moves to stand beside him. She takes his hand and places it precisely on the bow and then arranges his other hand to grasp the arrow correctly. "You will learn."

She shows him how to string it and she shows him how to aim it and, finally, she shows him how to shoot it. Rather than on their proximity, he focuses on learning the bow, and that is how she knows there is hope, yet. Skill comes from knowledge, knowledge from learning and time. That he has no apparent skill with the bow does not concern her. There will be time enough to become skilled; he is young yet.

Fran hands him her quiver, which he takes without complaint, though he struggles to put it on his back while she pulls out her ninja sword from where it hangs and grasps the hilt tightly. Without another word, she moves and he follows.

They walk through the sands, slow, neither are as sure-footed as they'd like to be. When they see the sea before them glittering and blue and still no wyrm, he asks, "Why is it so…" he searches for a word, his eyes burning on her back harsher than the sun above, "…damaged?" She can hear his fingers skim across the mottled wood of her bow.

She falters and closes her eyes and opens them again and begins to walk, then stops. Behind her, he hangs in limbo, all curiosity and youth. His footsteps do not stir the sand anymore. Fran takes a breath and says, "I carved it."

"Was it meant to be designs?" he asks, haltingly.

"Destruction," she says quietly, "eased the pain of knowledge."

They walk again, silence settling over them like the thinnest dust, like delicate glass. Nearby, they hear a roar, and they turn, praying, hoping, wishing it is their mark, just to end this tension that gnaws at them like thousands of hungry monsters.

Tall and huge, the ring wyrm moves its hulking form over the sand, not paying them any mind. Fran nods to Balthier and tightens her grip on her blade.

"Are you prepared?" she asks him and when he swallows and nods, she launches at the beast, leaving him to blink and string the bow with hands that shake.

While she dances around the thing, blade slicing and twisting and slashing, half of Balthier's shots miss the creature entirely, a fourth slide off, and the rest serve to infuriate the thing. Fran uses the beast's own bulk against it, darting to and fro with a speed and dexterity that leaves it roaring and angry.

Balthier, meanwhile, swears the tenth time he misses and the fourth time an arrow slides off the wyrm's hide to skitter harmlessly to the ground. But, more importantly, he swears when Fran gets her first wound, blood dripping from her arm and staining the sand. The two become serious then; she stops playing and he focuses, letting the adrenaline of the fight fight and his instincts rule. Only a third of his shots miss now, while a third are cast aside, and a third hit. Fran smiles and digs her blade deep into the beast's hide.

It roars.

Not long after, it falls bleeding onto the sand, and Fran grins and steps to it, her breath coming fast and heavy. Balthier smells sharply of sweat when he approaches her. "Are you all right?" he asks, watching her arm and chest bleed.

"Yes," she says and seals her wounds with a quick spell.

He nods and says darkly, "I hate this thing."

When he tries to hand her the bow, she shakes her head. "You will need it for our next hunt," she says, "Keep it until we are through."

"Are we doing them all today?" he asks, aghast.

With a chuckle, she shakes her head, and uses her ninja sword to cut one of the wyrm's claws off. She nods to Balthier and motions for him to follow and they go back to her bike.

On their way back to Balfonheim, his fingers on her hips are less hesitant. Once, she thinks he laughs when she turns sharper than she should and they both nearly topple off her bike into a nest of marlboros.

Fran smiles.

* * *

Two days later, she has him meet her again in the aerodrome. He comes promptly at dawn, with her bow and quiver hanging on his back. "What are we after today?" he asks her, raising an eyebrow.

"A diresaur," she replies, putting aside the designs she had been working on. "Are you prepared?"

Solemnly, he nods; Fran stands. She pushes her goggles down so they hang around her neck and nods to him and then straddles her bike. After a moment's pause, he slides on the bike behind her, his hands clutching her hips. There is still space between them; he keeps her at arm's length.

That arrangement does not last long.

Motion and wind and hair hit him all at once, and he clings, closing the distance, because really, this bike was never meant to seat two, but he is intelligent and he knows this as she knows it. They must trust his strength to keep him seated, they must trust that she is steady as stone, but not wood.

Wood snaps too easily; it bows before the wind and sky in a way she refuses to. But the wind cannot blow a mountain down, nor can the sky crush it.

This day, they travel much farther than before. They go through the Steppe and the Phon Coast, and they passss through the Salikawood and that makes her ache with familiarity, that makes her wince with her treason. What viera would dare bring the metal of humes to this holy place?

The answer comes like fire across what little remains of what she was once. A viera who is no longer a viera.

Day trickles to a low filtered-light by time they reach the Mosphoran Highwaste. She stops her bike by one of the inactive shrines, and they stand, stretching stiff legs with twin winces.

"Well," he says and the frowns and pulls one of her hairs out of his mouth with a grimace. "We didn't crash."

"Do not sound so surprised," she tells him, perhaps more harshly than she intends, for he looks away and falls silent.

They draw their weapons and start the hunt. Her ears turn this way and that, listening for some telling sound, and he pretends to be looking for the creature too, but every time she glances back at him, he's watching her ears move with fascination.

Darkness falls faster than either would like, and still they have not found the beast. By now, he's put slung the bow on his back again, and every time he thinks she's not looking, he shivers and rubs his hands together. Humes are so delicate. "What did you mean, yesterday? About destruction and knowledge?"

She stops to look back at him, shivering in the chill of night with his teeth ground tight to keep them from chattering. "I obtained knowledge that alienated me from the viera," she tells him after a moment. "Destroying my bow eased that pain."

Balthier shivers again; they begin their hunt anew, with thick silence contrasting the cacophony of the night's creatures.

The moon rises to its zenith by time they find their mark. It stands huge and tall, naught but a dark silhouette in the night. Fran puts a hand to Balthier's shoulder and points to it. She feels, but does not see, his nod.

"Shall we?" he asks, the quaver long gone from his voice. He's adapted to the cold, as humes are wont to do.

She nods, once, then tightens her grip on the hilt while he notches an arrow, carefully but not easily. Swiftly, Fran darts forward, and her blade slices the beast's hide. It shrieks and turns on her, claws and teeth slashing.

Fran jumps back; Balthier misses his first three shots.

The diresaur steps nearer—it's faster than the ring wyrm—and she holds the ninja sword between her and it and for the first time wonders if maybe she underestimated its strength when she decided to hunt it at night. Humes rely on sight far more than viera, and Balthier may not be of help.

But that is not why she has brought him, is it? She could do this alone—she needs Balthier's aid not at all. No, this is for his benefit. Because when she left the Wood there was no one to aid her and she's still struggling to learn everything she needs to, still struggling to separate the life she left behind with the life she's found herself.

Kindness for a kindness—he was kind to her that day in Archades, despite having to throw her from his gilded city and so she shall aid him through this hardest part of making himself anew.

She takes scratches to her side and hisses as the scent of her own blood fills her nose. Even after so many years, her blood smells cool and earthy, like the Jungle. It's a harsh reminder of what she was, of where she is from. A reminder than, despite everything, she will never be of the metallic humes.

Fran lunges, and shoves her blade in deep. Now, she can smell its blood, stinking of meat and death, and she darts out of the way of another attack, slower than she might were she not injured. Balthier shoots and hits, then casts Cure on her. His magick is weak, the spell haphazard, but it serves well enough. Fran nods her thanks and moves in again.

Just before the creature dies, she remembers this from when she fought them long ago in the Wood, its strength and speed increases in a fit of rage. When it shrieks, it draws other creatures to them that Balthier struggles to dispatch fast enough, while Fran is too slow to stop the diresaur from moving past her.

The beast's long tail whips out and catches Balthier across the chest. With a grunt, he falls to the ground and scrambles to grab the bow again and gets up on a knee, panting. Quick, he notches another arrow and lets it loose.

It flies, whistling through the night, and Fran smiles, because she knows, and it hits home and with a final cry, the diresaur collapses.

With a sigh of relief, Balthier stands with wincing care. Fran moves and cuts a tooth from the mouth of the beast and then turns to him and she puts her hand to his chest and heals the bruised bones. In the dark of night, she can see the glint of his teeth as he smiles.

"Thank you," he says, and then, with an incredulous laugh, says, "I killed it!"

She seals her own wounds and tucks away the tooth and hangs her sword on her back. When she turns to leave, Balthier follows, elation making his step light.

On the way to Balfonheim, he falls asleep, his head resting on her shoulder, his hands laxly wrapped around her middle. Fran takes care to ensure he does not fall. She rather likes this one.

* * *

"What happened?" he asks a week after promptly at dawn.

He looks at her bike with surprise and eyebrows raised. "I am altering it," she tells him with a delicate shrug.

This time, she does not ask if he is ready. She knows the answer from the bow and quiver on his back The quiver is stuffed full of arrows and she has to hide a smile. "We will be using an alternate mode of travel," she tells him. "The way is far."

Balthier follows her out of the aerodrome without question, keeping far enough behind her that no one spares them a second glance. The Gate Crystal shines orange in the rising sun and Balthier eyes it with distaste. "Could we not merely fly my ship?"

"Next time," she promises.

She holds her hand out and his eyes flash—memory of how she spurned his offer of this then, perhaps?—but he takes it, careful of her claws. The boy learns fast and she smiles.

With her other hand, she touches the crystal gently and they're gone, flying through time and space, to appear in the Jahara. Balthier looks about, and his eyes are wide and green. "Where are we?"

"Jahara… land of the garif," she replies and nods to the two garif who guard the entrance of their village.

Gravelly, they nod back. "We hunt a Croc," she tells all of them. "One that wreaks havoc on the Plains of the Ozmone."

Again they nod, and Fran moves to leave, into the plains, and Balthier, glancing back one last time, follows.

He clutches her bow in one hand, an arrow in the other, and she pulls out her ninja sword. With great care, they tread through the grasses and his eyes widen again, for few humes have traveled so far south, especially if they hail from Archades.

With especial interest, he looks at all the fallen ships, at the metal that glints in the sun with radiance lost and dreams broken in an angry and burning sky. He does not know the lore of that air battle, but she does. Fran expects him to ask but, when he does open his mouth, he asks instead, "Why do they wear masks?"

"The garif?" she asks, with an arched eyebrow.

By now, she should not be surprised by him asking the exact questions she doesn't want asked. By now, she shouldn't be surprised by him asking the questions she needs asked. Impatient, he nods.

"Garif believe that their souls lay in their faces," she tells him. "The masks are to keep their souls from being lost to the sky."

He frowns at that answer but shrugs and looks to the sky and clouds, as though they might have his answers. His face is so easily read—peace and longing both. The ground holds nothing for him, the earth even less, and she smiles because, in that way, he is lucky.

They continue through the Plains, looking for the creature and Balthier keeps shooting glances, alternating between her and the sky, as though hoping neither of them will notice. Hiding a smile, she lets him think she does not see. Why shame him unnecessarily?

When finally they find the Croc, Balthier's mouth opens a little and he turns to her. "You didn't tell me it was the size of a _Tonberry_," he hisses.

"I did not know," she tells him sagely.

He purses his mouth; he strings the arrow, watching the beast with eyes of brown and blue. Fran runs at the beast and Balthier aims and shoots with an alacrity that makes her smile because he finally is starting to understand, because the arrow hits and embeds in the monster's flesh and it roars and its blood-scent fills her nose. In tandem, they attack.

When the beast bites her and her blood pours to the ground and she exhales and staggers back, Balthier heals her, cool hume magick settling over her like a fine dusting of pollen.

She throws a smile over her shoulder and then throws herself into the fight again, slashing with her ninja sword, viscous. To kill for personal gain—or personal reasons at all, truthfully—is not the way of a viera.

But it is the way of a pirate, and she is more pirate than she is viera, now.

Again, it is Balthier who deals the final blow, and Fran grins as it falls and takes from it a tuft of hair and Balthier smiles at her, shining in the light of the Plains, and she can't do anything but smile back and wonder when it was she became so sentimental.

"Shall we?" he asks and she nods.

This time, it is he who holds out his hand. With their fingers tightly interwoven, they hurtle back to Balfonheim, and she thinks, maybe, the red of his cheeks is from something other than shame.

* * *

At dawn the following day, they meet before his ship. He stands there with a proud gleam in his eyes and swollen ears. Fran arches an eyebrow. Many earrings of different shapes hang from his ears, when yesterday he had but two.

Color rising and his mouth twisting, he puts a gentle finger to his ear and winces. Does he even realize how easily read he is?

"Well?" he asks with lips curved into an almost smile. "Are you prepared?"

"Indeed," she tells him and walks past him onto his ship.

Before he can stop her—if he would stop her—she sits in the navigator's seat and examines the controls with care. She does not touch them, however. Somehow, she doubts Balthier, with his need for structure, would understand or appreciate her method of learning.

He moves with the stiffness of someone who did not get enough rest the night before, and she nearly smiles, because, with each day, he becomes more a pirate and less a Judge. "Where to?" he asks, sitting in the pilot's seat.

Briefly, she marvels at this—this _familiarity_ and wonders, is it born of the fact they fly his ship, or has he truly grown comfortable in her presence? "Northern Archadia. Outside a town called Olathe..."

His hands over the steering console stiffen and his mouth goes tight. Long moments of silence stretch between them like a void before he turns to her. "I don't know what point you're trying to make," he tells her, voice quiet, "But if you think I'll run, you're very mistaken."

And that's all it takes to shatter the easiness and replace it with tension thick as the Feywood's Mist and she watches the clouds and sky and doesn't tell him that this is the first time she has flown.

The ground gets farther and farther away, the ship faster and faster. He flies well, even she can tell this, his steering is smooth and precise and wonderful and she finds herself almost grinning. This is piracy; this is freedom. Fran tries hard not to blink so that she doesn't miss a single second.

He glances at her and she knows he sees, because his eyes soften and the tension fades an infinitesimal amount. Still, silence stretches between them, unbreakable. Somehow, though, she finds it a blessing. Humes waste so many words because that is their way. To humes, actions are sacred and words normal, akin to nothing, even. This is something she has learned and yet, still cannot seem to mimic.

For as ever with the viera, it is reversed. Words are to be treasured and weighed, measured and analyzed, while actions are natural. Actions mean naught where they mean everything to humes.

Carefully, Balthier flies them around Archades, going well out of his way to avoid the city's airspace. She does not begrudge him that. In that action she can see the sanctity, its significance, his unease.

Both of them are glad Olathe lies so far from the capital. He cannot be comfortable in the country of his birth, but the farther they get from his city, the more tension leaves the set of his jaw. By time they land, they're nearly to the snow-flecked mountains. A chill wind blows and makes him wince as it disturbs his new earrings.

"Dare I ask what we're after?" he asks, standing next to her and keeping his face turned firmly from the direction of Archades.

"A soul reaper," she replies, "And worry not. 'Tis not the size of a Tonberry."

He looks at her, with brows furrowed, and says, "You have quite the fascination with souls."

They start out across the broken and rocky landscape and he glances at the terrain with disinterest, and she wonders if he has been here but does not ask.

"Yes," she says because he seems to expect some response.

"Is that cultural?" he asks, glancing at her. "Or is it... personal?"

She smiles at him and looks from him to the mountains—they stand taller than the highest tree, the highest building, and she knows humility. "I will tell you, after."

Balthier cocks an eyebrow but pries no more.

Clutching their weapons and moving carefully over the uneven ground, they continue. With his advantage over her in this place, Balthier spots their mark first. It's gray with dark blue and purple mist surrounding it like a halo. He strings the bow and Fran throws herself at the beast.

This time, they work as a team. His ranged attacks complement her up-close ones, and his skill is so improved, she thinks that he's probably practiced since last they met. When she's injured, he heals her with his clumsy and endearing hume spells and she keeps the monster from getting at him.

Before their combined might, it falls with a yowl that sends shivers through them and she takes ones of its curled arms as proof of its demise, ignoring the feel of almost intangible flesh beneath her fingers.

Once they're back up in the air, he glances at her and asks, "Souls?"

Well, he is nothing if not persistent. "A cultural one, perhaps. Or a longing for what I have not," she looks down at the ground so far below. "Archades is a city without soul."

The subject change nearly knocks them off course, he half-turns to glance at her, steadying his hands on the controls. His brows knot with confusion.

"And yet, Balthier, despite that, your soul is clear upon your face. Your soul betrays itself in your eyes."

Fran stares up at the metal ceiling—this ship is but a cage meant to fly—and then looks at him, for now both his eyebrows are raised and he thinks her mad or perhaps just helplessly sentimental like so many of his race are.

Speed increases and the ground stretches below them, impossibly far away. Is she the first not-viera to fly? Feet firmly on the ground, head below the canopy, that is how the viera live. But that is not how she lives any longer. "To escape a place without a soul, a soul must be made. As you have done, Balthier."

"But, where I hail from, the land itself has a soul," she says and looks at him, so he will know the importance of her words. "To escape a place with a soul, both soul and past must be cut away."

"You don't think you have a soul?" he asks, glancing at the sky every so often, but watching her, with incredulity and horror writ across his face.

A smile curves her mouth—does he think she is mad now?—and she nods, once. "For me, 'twas the price of freedom and knowledge both."

Silence reigns again, because she's shocked him and he's scrambling to catch up and she just watches the clouds go by and looks down on the land that is like hers, but not like hers. There is a rueful cast to her smile. This was never meant to be so personal—she'd merely wished to help him break his chains. She hadn't meant to give him this insight on herself.

A small sigh escapes her and she keeps watching.

"Was it..." he waits until she turns to him and meets his eyes. "Was it worth it?"

She smiles and says, without hesitation, "Yes. The life I've left behind is a cruel one."

His face softens and he turns his gaze back to the sky and they don't speak again, not because of tension, but rather, because they don't need to.

Part of her feels almost sorry that this hunt will be their last. Fran shakes her head—truly, she has become so sentimental since leaving the Wood, or perhaps she was always so. Perhaps that was her undoing long ago.

But she marvels at the truth, which she hadn't thought about before now.

Fran regrets nothing and that is the most wonderful feeling in all the world.


	4. Chapter 4

It takes Balthier two weeks to seek her out and he approaches her with a smile. He has a new haircut and has lost his glasses somewhere.

She wonders if he can see.

Fran arches an eyebrow but his focus has shifted to her bike. "Is that a throne?" he asks with something that might be a laugh or perhaps a snicker.

"For safety," she clarifies with a smile.

"And simply building something to hold onto wouldn't suffice," he says with a wink. "Fran, you've certainly a flair for design."

With a careful shrug, she closes the distance between them and asks, "Your payment?"

He holds out four rings—gaudy and bright and utterly predictable. They're made of a heavy stone and polished to gleam in the hazy orange light. For a moment she looks at them, then gives him a sidelong glance. His grin is rueful and he scratches the back of his head.

"What enchantments?" she asks.

"Protect, Shell, Haste, and..." he grins and pauses. "...Cleanse.

The last makes her laugh—only an Archadian would see the need for such a thing, but perhaps he does not have to burn all his roots. Just most.

"Come in three days," Fran tells Balthier and she tucks the rings away.

He grins again, mirth twisting his mouth. "And if I come sooner?"

"They will not be ready," she says with a shrug. "I am no miracle worker."

With a wink, he says, "Perhaps."

Again, his attention turns to her bike and he runs his hands over the chair she's in the process of attaching to the back, and he asks, "Will you indulge me?"

"Mayhap," she says and moves to her bike. "After I have enchanted your rings."

"I look forward to it," he smiles at her, a rakish smile, and gives a half bow.

When he leaves, Fran is left to ponder where and when he learned. She tilts her head to the side and she puts her goggles back on and turns back to her bike. The wrench is cool and familiar—his smile imprinted in her mind is not.

* * *

He comes the next day at noon, but hangs far enough back, that, were she a hume, she'd never notice him. With a shrug, she leaves him his anonymity, and does not turn to him.

Wrench in hand, she works on her bike most of the morning, sweat and grease and other substances streaking her and he stays there, not speaking, merely watching. Her ears flick back at him and she hears him inhale. Does he realize she knows he's there?

Fran shakes her head. When did he become so distracting?

Sighing, she puts her tool aside, and then shakes the chair. It wiggles and screeches beneath her touch, but she can fix that. Footsteps sound and then, "You have a stalker, kupo," Nono tells her cheerfully, looking at her hover bike with interest.

"I realize," she replies and steps back, eyeing her bike critically. "It needs more support."

"True, kupo. Do you want me to get rid of him, kupo? I can be quite ferocious."

Fran laughs and shakes her head. "He does not bother me."

"Were you going to help me with the Cerberus, kupo? Or are you just going to work on your bike?"

"I'll assist you later," she tells him, "I have a commission."

He nods. "All right, kupo," he says and leaves her there.

While she wipes her hands on a damp rag, she glances back at Balthier, who's chatting up one of the female pirates.

"You could come see my ship," she purrs, and Fran hears Balthier's chuckle.

"Some other time," he says, "I'm working."

The woman huffs. "In the aerodrome? What sort of sky pirate are you?"

"Weren't you leaving?" he asks and then sighs when she saunters off.

Fran shakes her head and spreads a clean rag on the floor and pulls out the first of Balthier's rings. Gently, she places it on the rag and then tugs her goggles down so they're hanging around her neck.

The floor is cold when she sits. She holds her hand out over the ring and calls the magick to herself. Focus and calm—if she falters, if she loses her train of thought, all will be lost and she'll need to start again.

Murmuring the spell over and over again in the vieran tongue (_"Protect, Protect, Protect"_), she pushes the magick from her fingertips into the ring, thinking of its smooth color, its polished surface. Nothing else crosses her mind. Nothing else can cross her mind, save the spell and the ring. That is all that exists.

Hours pass but she doesn't heed them. Finally, beneath her fingers, warmth sparks and burns and she can smell the magick emanating from the ring. Fran opens her eyes and exhales.

Before her, the ring glows and she picks it up gingerly. The rag she had set beneath it is charred black. She stands and has to sit again. Her body shakes with exertion and she's coated with sweat.

Fran exhales a quivering breath and tucks away the ring; she feels the magick warming her side and she stands ago, slower, with more care. Again, the world tilts and twists, but she stays standing this time, blinking and breathing. "Here," and she isn't sure when Balthier approached, but he hands her his canteen and her hands are shaking so much that she spills about a third it, but she gets enough and nods her thanks.

He does not do her the disservice of asking if she will be well. For that, she is grateful.

When she turns and walks with unsteady footsteps, Balthier follows at arm's length, and she isn't sure what he wants but she needs something, anything—the box next to her bedroll has ethers and she drains two and wastes one by time she's through, and the world seems almost right again.

"Do you have need of me?" she asks him calmly.

He winks and says, "I'm sure you've had your share of admirers," he pauses and presses on, with, something like anxiousness. "Am I bothering you?"

A chuckle almost escapes but she manages to reply, "Nay, Balthier. Watch as you please."

Almost instantly, she regrets it—somehow, she thinks he might take her up on the offer. Balthier gives a half bow and follows her back to where her bike sits. All he does is watch: he offers her no aid on her bike, does not offer her food or drink. Nothing.

Just before night falls, he gives a nod and walks out, whistling a tune.

Humes and their idiosyncrasies.

* * *

It is even less of a surprise when he comes the next day as well.

Partly, she wonders if maybe his scrutiny is him ensuring she does not cheat him of his enchantments. With a sigh, she sets about ensuring the chair will not fall from her bike without sacrificing the beauty of her bike to the cause.

Shallowness is not something she engages in often, save for regarding mechanicks. In a machine, beauty and functionality both are not so hard to attain and it is her way, as it is the vieran way, to adore perfection. She works to midday and uses a Cleanse spell to clear the grime from her hands.

Nono, with a laugh, brings her lunch. Some sort of green Dalmascan fruit and a piece of cooked fish. She smiles. "Thank you."

"Your guest is back, kupo," he says sternly, "Do you want me to get rid of him?"

"No. He does not concern me."

Fran glances at Balthier who gives a short wave, eating salted jerky he takes from one of the pouches he has acquired somewhere. Shaking his head and grumbling about viera who always learn backwards, Nono goes walking off.

After lunch, Fran pulls out another clean rag, and lays it on the ground. She takes out the second ring, this one is blue, and she puts it on the rag. In the Wood she remembers elder viera who could enchant three or four or five objects a day. Never could she imagine doing so many, when merely enchanting one wears her so thin.

With a wry smile, Fran marvels at her own youth, and holds her hand out. _"Shell, Shell, Shell, Shell,"_the magick streams through her, bright, and she can focus on that feeling, that exhilaration, and she thinks hard on the glinting ring and feels the stone, hard and strong and cool.

When she opens her eyes, breath coming in short gasps, Balthier crouches in front of her and hands her his canteen again. She nods and drains it again. This time, though, she'd prepared.

Without standing, she leans over and grabs three ethers from next to her tool bag and empties them. By time she stands, the world shifting but not spinning erratically, Balthier's already retreated.

Fran sighs and takes Balthier's ring, still glowing with magick, and slips it away. Her bike requires attention—Balthier does not.

Mechanicks are soothing and working on her hover soon cures her of the remembrance of overspent magick and humes who confuse her with actions she understands not. Machines are easy—when they are broken, you take them apart to fix them. Humes are no so easy—when they are broken, they detest being taken apart and detest being fixed even more. They are nearly as prideful as the viera, in that way.

Fran shakes her head and keeps working. She's so close.

That night, he leaves only after she finishes her bike, running over it with a rag and she smiles and he waves goodnight and she gives a distracted nod.

Finally, her hover bike is safe for two. Well, more or less, with, perhaps, an emphasis on the more.

* * *

She is even less surprised when he shows up the third day. This time, he comes into her workspace and sits, his back against the wall.

"Good morning, Fran," he says with a winning smile.

His eyes droop with exhaustion and his hair hasn't been combed. She smiles, fond. "Hail," she says and puts her armful of ethers onto the floor gently. " 'Twill be a dull day, I fear," she tells him, "You time would be better spent elsewhere."

Balthier merely shakes his head.

Putting Haste on the third ring isn't very difficult. After she finishes, Balthier hands her an ether and she downs it and three more and then moves onto the next ring.

Nono brings her lunch again and looks at Balthier disapprovingly, and Fran nods her thanks and he leaves without complaint.

Cleanse is the hardest one, because it's not a defensive spell but a restorative spell. Restorative spells release in quick bursts, like Cure and Curaja, where defensive spells smolder and last long, like Shell and Protect. It take so much longer to enchant an object with restorative spells. Magick pours from her and she can feel the pink stone absorbing it and absorbing but it takes so long to fill.

A long time passes before she feels the ring grow warm. She releases the magick and lowers herself to the ground and falls asleep promptly.

* * *

The next morning, she wakes on her bedroll smelling of her own sweat, ethers, gunpowder, and leather. With a grimace, she rolls off and gets another ether from her box and drains it.

She casts Cleanse and feels better. At least Balthier's scent no longer clings to her like perfume.

By time she manages to enter the main portion of the aerodrome, the sun's already streaming in and Balthier's examining her bike with careful, gracing touches. He turns at her approach and grins.

"Good morning," he says with a mock bow. "How do you feel?"

"If hangovers feel aught like this..." Fran shakes her head and walks to him and holds out his rings, burnt bright with magick and warm to the touch still.

He takes them and puts them all on one hand. Somehow, it's not as gaudy-looking as it should be, but still, it makes her smile. Shameless, he grins at her and winks.

"Now, Fran," he says and the grin fades to intensity. "I have a proposition for you."

"Oh?"

Balthier fiddles with his cuffs, fingers dancing across the fabric with his distraction. Glancing up at her, he clears his throat and looks back down at his sleeves, then back up at her. "Fran? Would you care to be my partner?"he tries for off-handed, for casual, like he hasn't been working up to this for some time, but her ears can pick up the strain in his voice and she can hear the way his heart pounds in his chest.

She tilts her head to the side, watching him. To find a partner is no simple thing. Pirate superstition dictates there is but one chance to find a co-pilot, to find a ship, to find a head-mechanic. Once you've chosen, you've chosen.

To attempt to change that choice is to bring the worst sort of luck to all involved.

Fran isn't sure she believes that—but pirates are remarkably firm in their beliefs. If bad luck does not befall naturally, they will see that it befalls by their hands.

It does not concern her, however, though she thinks he thought of that before asking her. No. Solitude has been her way since leaving the Jungle, perhaps since before then. Does she want a partner? More importantly, does she need one?

They work well together and seem to enjoy one another's company, that is true, but is that enough?

She looks at his face, which has stilled in a remarkable mesh of hope and fear, and she wonders if, perhaps, it is time to become something new again. Perhaps, sky pirate will replace engineer. Balthier looks down, youth apparent, and she can see his expression giving way to despair.

His soul reads so clearly, and she was like he is, once. And they fight the same battle, run from similar ghosts (ghosts that are places, ghosts that rip away what was and what will be, but they can't take what is).

Fran steps nearer and puts her hand onto his shoulder. It's cool to the touch.

"Aye, Balthier," she tells him, and with a slow curve of her mouth that becomes a full smile, she adds, "On a single condition."

His head jerks up, to look up at her, and he flinches, just once, and then he asks, "What?"

"You will allow my mentor to be your mechanic."

"Your mentor?" he frowns, with brows furrowed. "Who...?"

She releases a small, breathy laugh, and says, "The moogle."

Balthier's wince requires no articulation but he nods. "Alright. Partners, then, with a mechanic in the bargain."

When he holds his hand out, she shakes it, and is surprised when he brings her hand to his lips and brushes them across her knuckles. Tilting her head to the side, she reclaims her hand and says, dryly, "Partners. Now, would you like a test run?"

She nods her head sharply at her bike, ignoring the tingle of her hand, and he smiles like the child he was not so long ago. "You read my mind, Fran."

"Get on," she tells him and puts her goggles in place, "and hold on."

"To what?"

She laughs and moves to sit behind the controls and she fires it up as he sits on the chair, looking at her dubiously. "You are intelligent. Discover for yourself."

Whether the sound he makes next is an exhilarated laugh or a yelp of terror or perhaps a mesh of both matters little. Speed is all that matters. Salty sea-scent and the sound of fighting greet them and they zip through the streets; Balthier laughs now, through mouthfuls of her hair, and she only almost runs over four people, and rather than calling her a menace, he pulls out his gun and threatens to shoot anyone who gets in their way.

Fran grins.

A partnership is born.


End file.
